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Precision agriculture: A smart farming approach to agriculture

The latest edition of SPORE magazine focuses on COP23, however it has an article focusing on precision agriculture entitled, ‘Precision agriculture: A smart farming approach to agriculture’.

The ability to use smart technologies could make today’s farmers manage their farming practices remotely. For this to happen these technology need access to data usually collected by satellites and drones. The ability of implementing sensors in the field, on animals and in the soil which transmit real time data allows for cost-effective and accurate means to predict and protect the growth of agricultural crops.

This article further states that “precision agriculture provides the tools and data for deep analysis of farming practices”. However, the definition of precision agriculture itself varies with others focusing on production while others focus on holistic smart farming solutions. Two technologies are then discussed in-depth, (i) sensors (ii) and using drones for precision farming. Thereafter, this piece then focuses on the implementation of drones by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) focus countries – focusing on technology and legislation.

The e-Agriculture platform has previously covered these works of CTA and also in October held a course in drones in agriculture and rural development.Finally the article concludes by reiterating the important of data collection and then mentions the work of CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture.

Giacomo Rambaldi, “Drones for Agriculture” at the the ICT-Agri ODA Forum for Sustainable ICT Convergence in Agricultural Sector; The Present and Future of ICT-Agri Convergence to Achieve Food Security in Seoul, Korea on 6 November 2017